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Comment by brandon272 | Hacker News Reader

> Calling the police on security researchers...I honestly cannot believe this is considered acceptable behavior. A much less aggressive (and thoughtful) move would be to contact the researchers directly. Wow.

Reminds me of people who will call the police on a loud neighbor instead of just, you know, talking to them first.

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This isn't just a loud neighbor. This was a drunk loud neighbor waving a loaded gun around.

The driver was clearly distressed and they were just laughing it up.

No, these are knowledgable security researchers doing serious work who are probably amenable to discussing their research methods with concerned party via email or phone instead of the concerned party immediately phoning the police.

Doesn't matter who they are. They have a loaded gun in their hands. Use it somewhere private or not at all. Anything else is unacceptable and extremely dangerous.

Well, let's just have these guys arrested for marauding around the freeways with a "loaded gun" and we'll let the Russian hackers figure out the Cherokee's vulnerabilities.

I don't agree. They breached their own covenant, which doesn't afford them the benefit of the doubt you might assign to 'knowledgeable researchers doing serious work': "We won't do anything life threatening." Then they did precisely that: they disabled the transmission on an uphill freeway ramp with no shoulder, with a very large truck bearing down on the Jeep. Trucks cannot stop quickly. Substantial danger for the driver, the trucker, and everyone around them.

You honestly don't think these "security researchers" did anything wrong? They could have easily demonstrated the same vulnerability on a private course and made the same point, no need to recklessly endanger everyday people.

You have not met our neighbours! Drug dealers, they run a vehicle repair 'service' from their garden despite local council enforcement notices. They regularly have fights in the street, my wife has been verbally abused and followed on numerous occcasions and there have been two police 'drugs raids' that have resulted in absolutlely nothing useful happening. I could go on, but it's not relevant.

This has no bearing on the original issue ('Calling police on security researchers'), but I'm just saying that you can't debate nicely with everyone.

You're certainly right, you can't debate nicely with everyone. Is there evidence here that the researchers in question aren't open to critique or aren't willing to discuss the safety issues involved with their research methods?

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